


Just A Number

by kihadu



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 18:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kihadu/pseuds/kihadu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While sorting through the trash in Fenris' mansion Hawke and Bethany find out just how young Fenris really is... And Hawke is less than pleased with this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just A Number

**Author's Note:**

>  Well, this started out as fill for [this kink meme prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/9730.html?thread=40109314#t40109314), only when I reached the end and re-read the prompt I realised that actually, Hawke was meant to be a little more excited by events. Buuuut I can't be bothered writing more porn tonight, and I'm not in the mood for age play. Sorry, op, hopefully someone better than I gives you what you desire. 
> 
>  
> 
> Kind of non-canon in terms of timing, Hawke has a mansion but also a sister. I just miss writing Bethany.

“Look, Fen, you know I love you -”

“I know no such thing,” growls Fenris. He’s sitting on the couch, while Hawke and his sister sit on the table rifling through things.

“He’s just saying that you need to clean up a little more often.”

“Ugh,” says Fenris, rolling off the couch to get another bottle of wine. There’s a crash as Hawke tosses something at the wall. Bethany’s head snaps up.

“What was that?”

“Nothing important,” says Hawke. “Ooh, what’s this?” Bethany rolls her eyes at him, and carefully puts a folder on the stack she is forming.

“Fen!”

“Would you stop calling me that!” snarls Fenris, putting a bottle down on the floor with a clump and settling back down.

“Dan had a whooole buncha money.”

“No shit,” says Bethany.

“Nah, nah, I mean, a whole buncha money in the basement.”

“It’s not there,” Fenris says. “I’ve looked. I expect the merchants stole whatever they found.” The excited look on Hawke’s face fades. “Why you insist on going through his things I do not understand.”

“Because we might find treasure!” says Bethany excitedly.

“You’re as bad as that pirate wench,” Fenris growls, uncorking the bottle and taking a long swallow.

“Ooh, here’s something interesting,” says Bethany. “Gar, look at this.” Fenris groans at the siblings and lies back on the couch, staring at the cracked, peeling roof.

“Huh,” says Hawke. “I never knew slavers were so… precise in their keeping of the books. Look.” Bethany makes an approving noise.

“Of course they are,” growls Fenris. “Imagine we’re horses. You sell them, and breed them, and train them - of course you have to know everything about them.”

“Maybe Fen’s in there,” says Hawke, rifling through the pages.

“Why? So you can work out how much to sell me for?” Fenris feels the irritation through every part of him, and gulps down wine in an attempt to keep it under control. Bethany gasps at his words.

“We would never!” she cries, at the same moment Hawke chuckles.

“It would be a fun quick-rich scheme. Sell you, break you free, run off with the money and you.” There’s a loud noise as Bethany slaps her brother.

“Don’t joke about that sort of thing, it isn’t funny.”

“He knows I don’t mean it.” Hawke looks over at Fenris. “You know that, right?” Fenris only grunts in response, but he does know. He trusts Hawke completely, even if the man is an ass.

“He is in here! Look,” Bethany pushes the papers towards her brother.

“Maker’s cock,” gasps Hawke. Despite himself, Fenris feels his ears prick up in interest.

“What?” he asks, peering over at them.

“You are _expensive_.”

“Flatterer,” says Fenris dryly. “I already knew that.”

“You were sold to Danarius… No, wait, this can’t be right.”

“What is it?” asks Bethany, trying to snatch the papers off of him. Hawke drags them back.

“It says you were sold to him when you were nine.”

“No, that’s not right,” Bethany is shaking her head. “You’re, like, thirty.”

“Thirty one, we’ve always guessed,” says Hawke.

“Younger than you, older than Merrill,” Fenris agrees. His age has always been the point of some contention, but six months with the Fog warriors, plus several months on the run before he reached this city, and now nearly three years later, he’s in this mansion in this city making an almost home for himself.

“Wait, so if you were,” paper rustles as Bethany rechecks the numbers, “nine when you were sold to him…”

“I cannot remember being that young,” says Fenris.

“Then you, what, received the lyrium a couple years later,” Bethany interrupts Hawke.

“There are dates here. Fenris,” she looks up and meets his eyes. “You’re seventeen. Turning eighteen in Parvulis.”

“Fuck off,” says Hawke, snatching the paper. “No. No there is no way that you are less than half my age.”

Fenris jerks up off the couch and grabs the papers from them both, though the shapes on the paper make no sense to him and he shoves them back as soon as he’s seen them.

“Hah, cradle snatcher!” cries Bethany. “You’re younger than me, ya lil’ baby. Mum’s gonna be pleased,” she adds.

“Beth,” says Hawke, his voice hard. “Can you not?”

“Oh, come on, it’s a little funny.”

“No, it isn’t,” says Fenris.

“It’s a lot funny. Now you’re not just broody, you’re an angsty teenager.”

Hawke growls, rubbing his forehead, and then marches out of the mansion. Bethany stares after him. “What’s got his goat?”

“Perhaps the fact that his lover,” Fenris spits the word out, “is little more than a child.” Bethany begins to say something, but Fenris cuts her off. “Can you go, please? I need to be alone.”

“May I take this?” asks Bethany, wanting to look over the papers more closely.

“I don’t care,” snaps Fenris. He’s glad when the door clicks softly behind her. He swallows a mouthful of wine too fast and chokes, coughing violently so that his chest his heaving, throat burning.

Maker. Is he really so young? He examines himself as best he can in the glass that protects the painting over the fireplace. He doesn’t look young. He doesn’t look old, either, but with his white hair and elvish features it’s difficult to tell. Elves don’t show their age until later in life. He’s as smooth-skinned and beardless as always. He glances at the door, and considers going after Hawke.

But no. The man likes time to deal with things, and going now will only make him unhappy.

In the meantime, there’s wine.

 

By the next day everyone knows. Fenris walked to the Amell mansion three times just that morning, and another five in the evening. The one time he had the courage to knock on the door Bohdan answered to inform him that Hawke was not at home, neither was Bethany, but Lady Amell was, would Fenris perhaps like to talk with her? Fenris had fled to his mansion, and waited for night to fall.

And now, now he’s gone to the Hanged Man in the hopes that everything would be the same, that perhaps Hawke had dealt with this revelation only to find that everyone knows, and Hawke isn’t there.

His feet stutter to a stop at the top of the stairs.

“Is Ga- Hawke around?” he asks. He always forgets that Hawke’s real name is more private, and not meant for casual use in the bar rooms.

“No luck,” says Varric. Fenris frowns, feeling lost and not sure if he wants to stay.

“Aw, look at him, he’s not a wolf, he’s a little puppy, lost without his master.”

“An untrained puppy,” adds Isabela. Fenris balls his hands into fists and resists the urge to punch them both.

“Shut up,” he growls, sitting heavily down in his seat at Varric’s table.

“Are you old enough to be drinking?” continues Anders, as Fenris finds a mug on the table still with a little alcohol in the bottom. “Where’s Aveline when you need her? What’s the laws in Kirkwall for drinking ages?"

Fenris drains the mug, and picks up another.

“Because you’ve always been so concerned about keeping the law, Mage,” he says, wiping his mouth with his thumb and searching for another drink. Finding nothing he stands up and stalks downstairs. He hears them laughing after them and he wants to whirl and strike them all, to hurt them for laughing at him.

He thumps his elbows against the bar at glares at Corff.

“Bad day?” asks the bartender.

Fenris grunts, takes the drink offered, and flips the man double the coin. “Another,” he says, before he has swallowed the one he has.

“Steady on,” says Corff. “If you get drunk and smash up the bar, you ain’t comin’ back.”

“Like you can stop me,” mutters Fenris, but he gives a curt nod, and when he takes the second drink he turns his back to the bar and looks around. There’s a group of guards in one corner, a few templars ending their shift at a table along the wall. There are a couple elves, a few dwarves, but mostly the bar has Ferelden refugees in it. Ferelden refugees, but no Hawke.

 

 

A week goes by, and then he waits only as long as it takes for the sun to peek over the top of the lower buildings before he marches across Hightown to slam his fist on Hawke’s door. He pushes past the dwarf when it’s opened, taking the stairs two at a time to slam open Hawke’s bedroom door.

The man groans, shuffling deeper into the pillows. Fenris slamms the door shut behind him and pounces onto the bed.

“You haven’t come to see me.”

“Go ‘way,” mutters Hawke.

“No,” hisses Fenris, dragging at the covers. Hawke snatches them back. “We’ll talk about this now, or I’ll walk out of here and never come back.”

“You’re acting like a child,” says Hawke.

“That’s what I am, in case you didn’t get the memo,” Fenris snaps. He pulls the covers away and gasps at the bandages that wrap around Hawke’s torso. “What is this?” When Hawke doesn’t answer he slaps the man in the middle of the bandages. The man gasps and shudders. “What is this?” Fenris asks more loudly.

“Got hurt.”

“Because you didn’t invite me on a trip down the Coast?” Hawke tries to curl in on himself and groans at the pain. “Yes, that’s right, Sebastian told me all about it. Now, tell me why you’re avoiding me.”

“You’re younger than Bethany,” says Hawke, not meeting Fenris’ eyes. “You’re too young.”

“And I guess you don’t have the guts to end it face to face. Hoped I’d move on. Like this was a teenage crush,” Fenris leans down over Hawke’s face. “Well, it’s not. So if you want me gone you have to tell me, but chances are you’ll get yourself killed without me by your side, so you better be sure that’s what you want.”

Hawke blinks up at him, their noses nearly pressed together.

“No answer? That’s what I thought. Not Champion enough to deal with real life.” He moves to slip off the bed and Hawke grabs his wrist.

“Fen, I didn’t -” Fenris growls and twists out of his grip, angry that the man would even dare detain him.

“I’m not a fucking child, no matter how the others have thought to treat me recently.”

“I know, Fen - Fenris. I know.”

“I haven’t changed, you know,” says Fenris in a softer voice. “I’m still the same mess as before. It’s just a number.”

Hawke props himself up, lifting himself until he’s sitting against the pillows and properly facing Fenris. “No, it’s not. I’ll be seventy and you’ll still be fifty. If I live that long,” he adds with a careful grimace at the pain in his ribs. “Fen, I’m thirty-eight.”

“I know, your mother delights in telling us often enough that you’re nearly too late to rid yourself of me to start a ‘real family’.”

“She’s got Beth for that,” says Hawke dismissively.

“You think I should find someone my own age?”

“Yes,” Hawke says simply. “I think we should treat this like a summer fling and move on before either of us can get really hurt.”

Fenris shakes his head. “That’s impossible,” he says, and steadies himself. He’s never said the words; Hawke banters them about between killing blood mages and setting up camp, he says them in front of strangers and in the middle of sex. He knows the man means them, but Fenris has not yet been able to bring himself to say the words. They always seem too heavy, too weighted with meaning. He meets Hawke’s eyes. “Garrett, I love you. If you say the word I will go, but please don’t make me do that.”

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you,” says Hawke. “I’ve spent mine. This is it, this is my legacy, but you,” he taps Fenris’ chest. “You have so much more.”

“It won’t be anything if I don’t have you,” says Fenris softly. “Please don’t tell me to leave.”

Hawke keeps their eyes locked for another long moment before he sighs. “Alright. I’m sorry.”

“Good,” says Fenris. “I can’t have you running off every time you learn something new and terrible about me.” He tugs off his armour and curls up beside Hawke, making sure to keep clear of the injured area. “I’ll have you know I killed people.”

“Danarius raped you.”

Fenris immediately tenses, and slowly moves his hands away from their embrace of the man. “You already knew that.”

“You were a child,” says Hawke, aghast. “And all those things…” He shakes his head. “The man’s a monster.”

“Yes,” says Fenris. “And one day I will rip his heart out of his chest and the world will be balanced once more.”

“Good,” says Hawke, grimacing as he moves his arm to pull Fenris against his chest. The man - boy? - is a cuddler, though he’d probably murder Hawke if he ever let that fact slip.

A comfortable silence falls between them, and then Hawke frowns. Fenris can feel the expression through the sudden tension in the chest he’s leaning on.

“What?” he sighs.

“I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll start wetting the bed.”

“I’m seventeen, not five.”

“I dunno,” says Hawke. “Carver wet the bed pretty late. Ask Beth.”

“I’m not your _brother_ ,” growls Fenris, digging his nails into Hawke’s side and lifting himself up to glare into his eyes.

“Thank the Maker for that,” sighs Hawke, leaning forward to kiss him. “Age, I can deal with, incest is another thing entirely.”

“So I should keep my fantasies about your sister to myself?” chuckles Fenris.

“Don’t even joke about such a thing,” warns Hawke, but Fenris is laughing so he laughs, and then he groans at the pain in his ribs.

“Should have taken me with you,” says Fenris.

“Yes,” says Hawke. “I’m sorry. I’ll never go anywhere without you again.”

“Good,” says Fenris.

“Though that will make the bathroom a bit bothersome.” Fenris sighs, and pinches him.

“Ass.”

“I love you,” sighs Hawke.

“You better.”


End file.
